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| © Jabin Botsford/The New York Times |
“Are you ready to make America great again?” Ms. Palin said with Mr. Trump by her side at a rally at Iowa State University. “Are you ready to stump for Trump? I’m here to support the next president of the United States - Donald Trump.”
Her support is the highest-profile backing for a Republican contender so far. It came the same day that Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, said he hopes that Senator Ted Cruz will be defeated in Iowa, where the Feb. 1 caucuses are a must-win for the Texas senator, who is running neck-and-neck with Mr. Trump in state polls.
The endorsement came as Mr. Trump was bearing down in the state, holding multiple campaign events and raising expectations about his performance in the race’s first nominating contest.
“I am greatly honored to receive Sarah’s endorsement,” Mr. Trump said in a statement trumpeting Mrs. Palin’s decision. “She is a friend, and a high-quality person whom I have great respect for. I am proud to have her support.”
In Iowa, where Ms. Palin spent years developing support, the endorsement could be especially helpful. Mr. Trump has faced questions about whether his campaign’s organizing muscle can draw the voters to match his poll numbers come caucus night.
”Over the years Palin has actually cultivated a number of relationships in Iowa,” said Craig Robinson, the former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa and publisher of the website The Iowa Republican. ”There are the Tea Party activists who still think she’s great and a breath of fresh air, but she also did a good job of courting Republican donors in the state,” he added.
Other conservatives said that Ms. Palin serves as a particularly effective shield against Mr. Cruz, who has assiduously courted Iowa’s evangelical voters.
“Palin’s brand among evangelicals is as gold as the faucets in Trump tower,” said Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
“Endorsements alone don’t guarantee victory, but Palin’s embrace of Trump may turn the fight over the evangelical vote into a war for the soul of the party,” he said.
Mrs. Palin could amplify the news media-circus aspects of Mr. Trump’s candidacy: Like him, she is a reality-TV star accustomed to playing to the cameras and often accused of emphasizing flash over substance.
What’s more, while Mr. Trump has already shown the ability to garner wall-to-wall cable-news coverage, Mrs. Palin’s active involvement in his campaign could help him deprive Mr. Cruz of vital attention in the homestretch to the Feb. 1 caucuses.
As rumors circulted that the endorsement was about to happen, Mr. Cruz offered praise for his former close politcal ally after an aide to the senator mocked the pending endorsement earlier Tuesday. “I love Sarah Palin,” the senator told reporters in New Hampshire. “Sarah Palin is fantastic. Without her friendship and support, I wouldn’t be in the Senate today. So regardless of what Sarah decides to do in 2016, I will always remain a big, big fan of Sarah Palin.”
As word of Ms. Palin’s endorsement trickled through the Hansen Agricultural Student Learning Center at Iowa State University, the reaction from supporters of Mr. Trump who braved snow and frigid temperatures was mixed. Backers of Mr. Trump filled a warehouse-style building with a dirt floor that is sometimes used for tractor shows, but most said that it was the candidate that they cared about most, not his new endorsement.
“I’m not here to see her,” said Rich Hoffmann, 41, of Ankeny. “Some people it will matter to, but it doesn’t to me.”
Mrs. Palin and Mr. Trump are not strangers. The two shared pizza along with Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, in June 2011, when Mrs. Palin was considering a presidential run of her own and was making a bus tour around the country. (Mr. Trump was mocked at the time for using a knife and fork on his slice.)
They also share a trusted operative: Mr. Trump’s national political director, Michael Glassner, was chief of staff to Mrs. Palin’s political action committee.
And like Mr. Trump, Mrs. Palin has maverick tendencies. The mantra of her final weeks of the 2008 campaign was “going rogue,” as she defied instructions from aides to Senator John McCain of Arizona, the party’s presidential nominee.
Little-known before Mr. McCain picked her as his running mate, Mrs. Palin ultimately eclipsed Mr. McCain in popularity and polls show her maintaining strong support among Republicans. She has endured as a coveted endorser with an impressive fund-raising list. After the loss in 2008, she declined to finish her term in Alaska, and went on to become a reality TV star and a Fox News commentator. The endorsement of Mr. Trump puts Ms. Palin squarely back in the center of the media maelstrom.
Mrs. Palin endorsed several of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals in their statewide races, including Mr. Cruz during his Senate bid in Texas and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Mr. Cruz, after his 2012 primary victory over the incumbent lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, said he would not have made it to the Senate without Mrs. Palin’s backing.
For Mr. Trump, who is trying to accrue other endorsements in the coming weeks, the backing of high-profile Republicans could dent the outsider-to-politics aura that has been elemental to his success in the polls before the voting has begun. But the support of Ms. Palin, a darling of the Tea Party insurgency, could help inoculate him from the attacks.
The endorsement comes as Mr. Cruz is facing increasing criticism in Iowa for his opposition to federal ethanol mandates, highlighted by the criticism from Governor Branstad, whose son works for a group prompting ethanol, the corn-based fuel that is a crucial Iowa industry.
“Ted Cruz is ahead right now. What we’re trying to do is educate the people in the state of Iowa,” Mr. Branstad told reporters at the Renewable Fuels Summit in Altoona. “He is the biggest opponent of renewable fuels. He actually introduced a bill in 2013 to immediately eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standard.”
“He’s heavily financed by Big Oil,” the governor added. “I think it would be a big mistake for Iowa to support him.”
The remark was highly unusual for Mr. Branstad, an establishment Republican who nonetheless has stayed out of his party’s presidential primaries in the past.
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